Just about anything that has dark or dimly lit scenes would be out for me, unless you have (1) a screen with good anti-glare and (2) a good set of shades to block out the light.

Many TV shows have dark and dimly lit scenes, like Lost for example. Many movies have dark and dimly lit scenes as well. I remember when my father-in-law came over in the middle of the day, a few years ago, to watch the Bourne Identity during the day. At that time I have a CRT TV and blinds over the windows, the ones with the horizontal strips (like these http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Cus...ci_sku=11161722). Even with the blinds closed, you couldn't tell what was going on for most of the movie because of all the dark scenes being covered up by the glare on the TV still coming through the blinds that were closed.

So Nick, I take it you feel I'd be better off with a plasma that has an anti-reflective screen verses one of the LED/LCD's? Any brand / model's I should look at?

Come to think about it, I do tend to be drawn to the plasmas over the LCD's whenever I happen to be walking by the TV's in the different stores.

The anti-glare coating is good enough on my Pioneer Kuro that I can casually watch a football game or sit-com on it in the middle of the day with one window behind me (that has an overhang) not having the shades drawn. I wouldn't want to watch anything else on it because their is too much glare to tell what is going on. And Pioneer is supposed to have the best anti-glare coating that you can get on plasmas.

You are making it difficult for any TV with all of those windows, if you plan to watch the TV in the middle of the day. It's almost like asking what the best speaker setup would be to get so that you can listen to them in the middle of a busy shopping mall. Would Axiom speakers sound better than some that are sold out of the back of a van in that situation? It's hard to say. Sure if you cranked them up loud enough to overcome the background noise then the Axiom's could sound good, but that isn't a fair comparison. To deal with all those windows shining light into your room in the middle of the day you will have to crank up they brightness, possibly to the extremes of the torch mode on TV's. This kills the contrast ratio. Just about any competently made TV these days can look good if you ignore the contrast ratio. The biggest difference that you are paying for going from one manufacturer to another (ignoring the thinness fad) is getting better blacks and shadow detail. As you mentioned, this is why plasma sets usually look better, because they are better at doing this than most LCD's. So you can see why contrast ratio is probably the most important aspect of a good picture.

I'd suggest that, if you don't plan to do any critical viewing on the TV then you should just get a cheap LCD. Vizio is a good budget brand that has a pretty good picture for the money. Just make sure that it has a good anti-glare screen on it, because as I mentioned not all of them do. LCD's are nice because you can get more brightness out of them and some of them have very good anti-reflective screens, even better than the best offered on a plasma TV. Just don't expect to have a great picture at that point. If you plan to do some critical viewing in that room then you will need to control the light. There probably isn't much point in spending the extra money on a nice plasma (such as a Panasonic or a Pioneer Kuro, if you can still find one) if you can't even really see the good contrast ratio that you are paying for.

I would like to politely disagree with the Plasma choice. Of course this is all personal preference, but since others have shared theirs, I'll share mine. Personally I feel that LCD/LED sets are much brighter than their Plasma counterparts. And I can't speak for any other LCD screens, but my Sharp AQUOS screen is practically glare free. I don't have any window's pointing directly towards my screen, but even when I get up and sit to the side of it to get (a faint) glare in my screen, the brightness of the screen still over rides any glare that I can force into it. At night it doesn't matter how many lights are on or how bright they are, nothing disturbs the way my screen performs.

And I need that with the work I do. While editing I have to have the most accurate picture I can work with. So let's just say if this screen wasn't as good as it is, I would have had to have looked for another screen.

It is true that plasma screens are not as bright as LCDs. But "brighter is better" is in the same category of "louder is better". As long as you have enough light over come the surrounding environment that's the important thing. Going brighter than that will hurt the relative black level.

Relative black level is the most important thing for achieving depth of picture. If blacks don't appear inky, and as dark as the darkest thing in your field of view, you're not getting everything you can from the picture. Color accuracy comes second black level for image quality.

I keep saying relative black level. Contrast ratio is a misleading spec. The number inflates rapidly when a display is able to drop its absolute black level, but doesn't really take into account one which can outshine the sun. If you had a display which could have absolute 0 output for black, but produce only a tiny bit of light for white, it would still have an infinite to 1 contrast ratio. Still a display which had some light leakage for black, but used a thermonuclear device for white would have a lower ratio.

What's important is the display be able to appear totally black in its surrounding. Considering I watch with only a bias light behind the set, I need a plasma to go dark enough. But in a room which is always lit, the little light leaked by LCDs (try saying that 10 times fast) can easily be lower than the ambient shadows and thus appear black.

If a set isn't producing enough light over-all it'll appear reflective. That means your room is too bright for the display, not much you can do about it, but make the room darker or change it out.

I do like an image with high native on/off contrast. That’s why I run a JVC RS20 and Stewart Firehawk screen in my theater and that room is completely light controlled and painted dark. I am however finding that I prefer ANSI contrast over on/off and will sacrifice some on/off for ANSI when I buy my next projector. I will most likely go with a DLP projector as soon as LED shakes out for projectors. That’s why I’m still running the RS20 and have resisted the urge to move from it to a newer machine.

But, for this particular room, critical viewing is not a concern. Like I said, I had no intention of ever having a display in this room. I am caving in for a couple of my more vocal friends with an addiction to sports (I do not watch sports, I participate). I don’t want to buy junk though either. I am an A/V geek after all.